Cabal Online is shutting down in the West

OGPlanet, publisher for the free-to-play MMORPG Cabal Online, announced last week that the title will be closing down effective March 31, 2010. Cabal, developed by ESTsoft and originally released in Korea back in 2005, was localized and released for the North American market in early 2008, and featured combat-heavy gameplay and a dark storyline set in the world of Nevareth.

OGPlanet offered up a somber press release on the game's web site. "We truly felt that a game like Cabal Online would offer something different and unique for our loyal OGPlanet members, and in many ways, we believe it has. While we had hoped to continue operating the game as part of our services, the game's developers, EST Soft, has unfortunately decided not to extend our contract for Cabal Online," the release states.

OGPlanet goes on to say that item shop transactions were suspended on March 19, and that they "are doing everything we can to compensate our loyal customers."
[Edit: There is an update to this story here.]